A Skeleton Crew Season 2 Could Face the Stranger Things Problem

We’re still over a month until the debut of the next Star Wars show, Skeleton Crew, but the crew itself finished a long, long time ago. In a new interview with one of the show’s stars, Jude Law, it’s mentioned he filmed the show in 2022 and 2023, which might pose a practical problem for the future of the series.

Skeleton Crew follows a group of kids who find a spaceship and ride it off into an adventure. Along the way they run into a potential Jedi, Jod Na Nawood (Law), who impacts that journey in some way. And no matter what that adventure is, where it ends up, or how it impacts the Star Wars universe, Law thinks the fact the kids will be several years older by the time a second season could potentially happen might cause a problem. “The kids were at an age where you leave six months and they grow four inches,” he told Variety in a career-spanning profile.

This was an issue Netflix ran into with Stranger Things. After the surprise success of the show’s first season in 2016, everyone knew the show would continue. But though a relatively short amount of time has passed for its characters, it’s almost a decade later in real life. By the time that show’s fifth and final season debuts in 2025,  the “kid actors” will all literally be adults.

That didn’t stop Netflix from moving forward though and there’s no indication it would stop Lucasfilm or Disney+ either. It’s not like the company doesn’t understand the concept of time and aging. But, Law thinks, it might become a concern. io9 reached out to Lucasfilm for comment and will update this piece if or when we hear back.

There is one much bigger obstacle before this actually becomes a full-on concern, though. That’s the question of is the show good and will people watch it? Created by Jon Watts and Christopher Ford, Skeleton Crew will mark the first live-action, modern Star Wars story to focus on kids. Which seems wild considering George Lucas has always said it was a franchise for 12-year-olds. But will people of all ages enjoy watching 12-year-olds in a galaxy far, far, away? And, after Disney pulled the plug on The Acolyte so soon after its first season, will Skeleton Crew have a similarly short leash? We’ll find out starting December 3.

In addition to Law, Skeleton Crew stars Ravi Cabot-Conyers, Ryan Kiera Armstrong, Kyriana Kratter, Robert Timothy Smith, Tunde Adebimpe, Kerry Condon, and Nick Frost. Directors include Jon Watts, David Lowery, the Daniels, Jake Schreier, Bryce Dallas Howard, and Lee Isaac Chung. Executive producers include Ford, Watts, Jon Favreau, Dave Filoni, Kathleen Kennedy, and Colin Wilson.

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